


cold as ice

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Succubi & Incubi, M/M, but also... 2016 canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-12
Packaged: 2019-07-11 14:57:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15974696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: There’s something about the waiting that makes it hotter, that makes Harry want to work for Niall’s attention. It makes the taste of Niall sweeter, it leaves Harry stronger than he normally is. Harry could drag it out for hours, and he wouldn’t have to feed for fucking months. He wouldn’t have to come back here, tail tucked between his legs, chewing on his lip to keep himself from begging.Not that he needs to beg. The look on Niall’s face says he doesn’t have to beg, and he can’t tell if that makes it easier or harder to be here.[Or Harry hasn't fed in three months, and somehow it's Niall's problem.]





	cold as ice

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coldbam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coldbam/gifts), [veryniceandgood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryniceandgood/gifts).



> for my best, for my faves, fina and nicole - thatwasforyou.gif. based on exactly one sentence in this [gorgeous prompt](https://coldnonsense.tumblr.com/post/176650219131/ice-cavern). i know this doesn't look like something i wrote, but i promise it is.

He doesn’t know where he is, but that’s never really mattered. He doesn’t know where Niall is, not that it’s his business to keep tabs on him anymore, but it’s not one of his flats. It’s a hotel room, king bed, maybe a view behind the blackout curtains Niall’s kept shut because he can’t stand a bit of sunlight when he’s trying to sleep. 

Harry, rather famously, can fall asleep anywhere. But that’s more of an occupational hazard meets a… species hazard, if anything. 

Harry’s tucked up in a chair across the room, something that looks plush but is rather rigid, high backed, with a cushion wide enough that someone could comfortably straddle him. He tucks his legs up into the chair at the thought, tangling his cold feet together and shoving them into the crevice where the arm of the chair meets the cushion, taking up all the available space.

It doesn’t help fight the cold, though. It comes from deep within Harry, frigid all the way to his core. On the worst days he lets himself believe that, that he’s just that shit. It feels like the worst day, that he’s naked, hard, desperate, shivering in Niall’s hotel room, waiting for him to wake up. His only relief is that he’s not in the bed with Niall already, not inches away from him and actively testing the boundaries and rules he’s spent years building up trying to live like this.

“You look like shit,” Harry hears, hadn’t even clocked the subtle shift in Niall’s breathing that means he’s woken up, he’s so out of it. 

There’s a light on, a soft glow to the room not from any lamp Harry sees, by the time Harry’s eyes drag over to Niall, who’s still barely visible beneath the fluffy white duvet. But Harry knows Niall’s eyes are on him. And he knows the steady rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes in and out, the dip in his chin, the slope of his nose. 

He looks good, frustratingly good, and Harry looks like roadkill. Harry’s brittle, gaunt, two weeks away from headlines threatening rehab rumors. If he were method, he’d let it go - horrors of war and all, he could look scrappy instead of pretty. But he doesn’t know where that’d lead. Probably to fucking his way through everyone on the set. And he can’t - he can’t have that.

Niall stretches, accompanied by the soft white noise of skin on hotel linens. He may even yawn, but that’ll be put on. You don’t yawn in dreams. “Can hardly get it up with a face like that.”

Harry rolls his eyes and keeps his mouth shut. His fingers fidget at his thigh, his nails threatening to pinch into his skin. It starts like this only with Niall - gently, like the act of watching him wake up is just part of the foreplay. Harry starts rather in the thick of it with others, lips on necks, hands squeezing hips, a steady grind.

There’s something about the waiting that makes it hotter, that makes Harry want to work for Niall’s attention. It makes the taste of Niall sweeter, it leaves Harry stronger than he normally is. Harry could drag it out for hours, and he wouldn’t have to feed for fucking months. He wouldn’t have to come back here, tail tucked between his legs, chewing on his lip to keep himself from begging. 

Not that he needs to beg. The look on Niall’s face says he doesn’t have to beg, and he can’t tell if that makes it easier or harder to be here. 

“How long’s it been, a couple weeks?” Niall guesses. Harry doesn’t confirm, keeps his eyes trained on what he can see of Niall’s collarbone. “A month? Two? Help me out here. Three?”

Harry looks away.

“Three?  _ Three months _ ?” He sits up fully as scrubs his face, the duvet falling to expose his chest. “You got a deathwish or something?” 

He doesn’t know if it’ll kill him, Nick’s never said. He’d just pressed his lips real thin when Harry’d asked, gone more serious than Harry’s ever seen in his life, and said, firmly, “Don’t do that.”

He never had to worry, not with Niall around, always up for it, so Harry wouldn’t have to find someone else. It was supposed to be safer this way, but he hasn’t seen Niall in six months and it feels anything but safe.

Niall looks angry, but Harry knows better. It’s covering concern just under the surface, that particularly Niall combination of  _ I’m concerned about you and I’m angry about it _ . 

“You said you had it taken care of.”

Harry thought he had.

“You said you didn’t - need - you said you’d be fine.”

He had, but it wasn’t as shit as Niall makes it sound. He was trying to be benevolent, give Niall his life back, the chance to fall in love, the chance to get his heart broken, or at the very least, the chance to get his dick sucked in real life by someone who’d swallow because they were being nice and not because they needed to feed. 

Harry said he’d be fine because he thought he had it under control, and he did, back in January, fucked his way up through the spring until he’d - well. He’d fucked that up. She wouldn’t even look at him, her eyes would drop straight to the floor, and she’d talk to her shoes instead of Harry, like she feared something in his face. Like maybe she remembered too much.

Harry was wrong, and he’s not in the habit of admitting it. So he doesn’t. He tries to look placid, but Niall will know better. It’s covering desperation just under the surface, that particularly Harry combination of  _ I fucking need you and I’m angry about it _ .

“I’ll leave if you’re just going to be a shit about it,” Niall threatens, and he knows how. A long month of trial and error taught them both how to wake up, just in case they needed to. Nevermind that someone waking themselves up feels like Harry’s taken a slice right up his chest, leaves him bleeding out until he can wake himself up.

Niall won’t leave, though, it’s a bluff. Harry’s certain of it. He can smell it from across the room.

But he knows what Niall wants. 

“Don’t,” Harry says. His voice sounds rough, not as steady as he’d like. “Don’t go.”

He unfolds himself from the chair carefully and rises to as much of his full height he can manage through the shivering weakness he feels. He keeps his hands still clenched at his side as he lets Niall get an eyeful of what’s coming for him.

_ Dinner and a show _ , they’d called it. That’s how Niall checked if he needed it.  _ You up for a dinner and a show tonight? _ Harry gets the dinner, Niall gets a show. It’s not much of a show, the reluctant trail he takes from his chair to the side of the bed Niall’s not in, the side he’s left empty like he knew to expect company.

He knees up onto the bed, resting his arse back onto his heels, his best approximation of a show. But instead of a slow slide down Harry’s body, toned and hard all the way down, Niall keeps his eyes trained to Harry’s face, reading it like it’s got secrets printed all over it. There are some, in the shadows under his eyes, rounding his chapped lips, in the hollows of his cheeks.

“Hey,” Niall says.

“Hey,” Harry says.  _ Give me permission _ , Harry thinks, and Niall does with a nod of his head.

“C’mere.”

Harry’s leg swings over easily, and he finds the duvet no longer separates them, just Niall’s thin boxer briefs, as he settles his whole weight on Niall’s lap. They’re face to face now, on the same level. 

Niall raises a single hand to the side of Harry’s face, a gentle caress that cracks open Harry’s mind. A whole night of possibilities flood inside, a thousand different ways that leave him full to bursting, his skin aglow and humming with a strength he’s never truly taken advantage of. The strength that says he could own a person, or destroy a person. 

Harry’s mouth falls open, his breath curling out ahead of him before evaporating like it was never there at all. He gets colder, ready for him, and Niall’s fingertips sear hot like a brand on his skin. 

Harry remembers the first time he’d realized, he’d said it, dazed, “You’re so fucking hot.”

Niall had chuckled that manic chuckle of his, his eyes scrunched, before dropping his voice to tease, “Yeah, baby, tell me more.”

Harry had swatted at him until Niall held his hand, laced his fingers right through Harry’s, which is really what Harry was always after from the start. 

It used to be a laugh.

Harry shudders out another breath again, directly into Niall’s face, but he doesn’t flinch away from the cold. 

“All right?” Niall asks, and all Harry can do is nod, shifting until his lips can press against the delicate skin inside Niall’s wrist, until he gets a grip on himself. 

“Slow,” Harry says, because he doesn’t quite trust himself to manage any other speed, not for how long it’s been, to keep Niall safe. 

“I like slow.”

He proves it moving his hand slowly up Harry’s face, tracing a delicate path into what’s left of his hair. It’s not much, shorn on the sides as it is, and Harry can’t tell a thing about what Niall thinks of it. 

It doesn’t matter what Niall thinks, what’s done is done. And any snort of derision at Harry’s style choices have been met just the same as any lingering, hungry glances at Harry’s style choices - Harry’s always going to do what he likes.

Still his traitorous mouth asks, “D’you like it?”

“Awfully short.”

Harry makes a face. “Can’t please everyone.”

Niall gives however much of Harry’s hair he’s collected a tug, but even the hint of what he was able to do last year is enough to get Harry’s breath caught in his chest. 

“Reckon that’ll do.” He tips Harry’s head to the side, exposing his neck. 

The bruise Niall leaves has him keening, wishing it would sink into his skin so he could keep it, a proper brand. 

Harry’s find his lips eventually, and his hand leaves a wake of goosebumps up Niall’s back. Niall shivers, but says nothing, kisses dutifully even if he once compared sucking Harry’s dick to sucking an ice lolly.

Harry hasn’t said the word since Nick named it for him, petting at his hair to keep him from crying. He’s never found out if it’s a curse, if it’s just karma for the charmed life he’s been given, but it doesn’t really matter in the end, does it. This is all he has, all he gets.

Harry loves himself more than anyone else could love him, because he couldn’t live with the alternative. It’s why he broke tonight, and has come to Niall. He’s tired of looking in the mirror and seeing the monster that’s meant to come out only in his dreams. 

Niall had needed it too, from time to time, something of a distraction from his pain, though he’d never admit it. A night after the surgery spent fucking Harry against a wall when they both knew his real knee wouldn’t let him stand. 

That night in March last year when he’d cornered Harry, said, “Dinner and a show later?” like it was a command not a question. Niall hadn’t woken up from their dream until two and a half hours after Harry had, dead to the world like some kind of reprieve from the horror show awaiting them in the day.

It doesn’t have to be parasitic, Niall had told him, when he used to catch Harry worrying. But it’s never made Harry feel any less shit about it in the end.

There’s no concept of time where they are, but he feels like he loses hours to the faith worship of Niall’s lips, neck, chest, to the steady grind of their dicks together, to the wandering of Niall’s burning hands. 

Every touch saves up energy in Harry’s chest, like scrubbing your socked feet against the carpet to charge up to shock someone. He wants to be full to bursting, he wants to be able to bring a fucking house down. 

Harry asks him for more, eats up the way Niall says yes desperately, tugging at his pants before Harry can steady his hands and pull them off for him. 

His pants are navy and deliciously damp around the front and Harry curls his fingers around them protectively, like they’re a token of affection or a spoil of war. It’s fucking weird is what it is.

_ Don’t fucking hold onto ‘em, you freak,  _ Harry tells himself firmly before he tosses them behind his shoulder, hard enough they’ll have likely hit the floor. 

He promptly sucks Niall down to the back of his throat, swallowing with all the determination he can muster, because he’s a gentleman. Licking into the icebox that makes up the inside of Harry’s body is one thing, but sticking a dick in is a wholly unique adventure.  

“Christ,” Niall mutters, his hips jerking, but not in a good way, as he shivers.

Harry pulls off, licking his lips as he frowns. “It’s easier if I - ”

Niall shakes his head. “I remember.”

That’s fucking right, Niall remembers. Niall remembers Harry gets to touch all the places on Niall nobody else gets to. That’s what he tells himself, that Niall’s still ruined for other people, even after all these years. That Niall’s just like Harry, faking like he’s come in his pants when he’s with someone else. It’s less embarrassing to be easy than it is to be impotent. 

He remembers when Niall had figured it out, last summer, when they’d started slowing down, when Harry’d started pulling away once they’d put an end date on the whole thing. Niall slammed the door behind himself, kept his hands clenched at his sides, accused Harry of “doing his head in.” 

_ How d’you think I feel _ , Harry wanted to ask him.  _ I gotta fuck you in order to live _ . 

He can’t say things like he needs Niall like breathing, because even that’s too cliche for him. And because then he wouldn’t have any secrets left. 

Niall’s close to giving him everything he’s got, leaking into Harry’s mouth the more he works Niall over. Niall’s breath can’t keep up, his fingers can’t find good purchase in the sheets, he can’t stop himself from giving over completely. That’s what Harry remembers. Niall fucking belongs to him.

“Harry.”

Harry ignores him, it’s not the way he wants to hear his name on Niall’s tongue. It’s not reverent, it’s chastising. 

Niall’s not opening himself to Harry. He’s close but closed off, and Harry’s desperately chasing the moment Niall cracks himself open and lets Harry take his fill. 

Harry’s not going months without this, he’s not going weeks, days, fucking  _ hours _ without Niall under him, without Harry’s fingers clawing into his sides. 

He’s going to suck Niall dry, make him come on his cock so many times he doesn’t wake up in the morning. Niall will sink back into a REM sleep, Harry will find him, and they’ll do this again.  

“Harry,” he says again. When he tugs at Harry’s hair, Harry pulls off to glower up at him, exhaling a chilling fog across Niall’s hip in what’s meant to be an impatient huff but comes out more like a warning growl. 

Niall watches him carefully, fingertips finding their way to burn against his cheek, before he prompts, “it’s good, s’fucking good. But. Slow, right?”

The rushing in Harry’s ears quiets, the anticipation in his chest deflates slowly, and the darkness around the edges of his eyes recedes. He finds himself again looking into Niall’s eyes, leaning hard against Niall’s hand. 

“Slow,” Harry confirms, but it’s painful. He eases himself off of Niall and watches him for the next hint. 

Once free, Niall shifts toward the edge of the bed and Harry moves to follow him like he’s tethered until Niall steadies him, presses on Harry’s shoulder until he sits firmly back onto the bed. 

“Wait here,” he instructs. “Lube is in my bag.”

Harry doesn’t call him out. This is a dream, the lube could be anywhere - under the pillow, in the nightstand, leaking out of Harry’s bum on command, whatever the fuck. Niall must need the break. 

Or maybe Harry needs the break, tipping too close to the edge of dangerous, hungry as he is. He presses his hand to his face, mortified, another massaging at his chest to quell the furious pounding of his heart. He’d almost gone too far, and someone weaker wouldn’t have been able to stop him. 

It feels too personal, suddenly. Not only is he starved, but it’s Niall that’s the one who’s doing it. Niall, who he trained himself with. Niall, whose energy has probably weaved its way into Harry’s DNA with how much he’s fed off him. Niall, who’s so good at compartmentalizing he gives Harry a run for his money. Niall, who’s strong as Harry is, maybe stronger, because Harry needs him to be. 

Maybe there’s a thing as too perfect for each other, not a matched set like a yin yang or two halves of a heart necklace, but rather something you’ve bought two of because you forgot you already had one, so you bin the spare or you give it to someone else.

_ Am I the spare or is Niall, _ Harry thinks as he shifts up the bed. 

He grabs the pillow Niall wasn’t using and shoves that under his hips, the one he was using Harry rests his head against, presses deep and tries to inhale Niall’s scent out of it. All he finds there is heat, and he rolls his face in it enough that it chills over.

He keeps his face pressed to the pillow, thinking maybe it’s the shattered look on Niall’s face that makes him lose control. It’s less personal this way, on his front. Could be anyone. Doesn’t have to be Niall. Maybe if he keeps telling himself that, it’ll sound true and not like the load of utter bollocks he knows it is.

Niall’s on the bed again, a sudden warm presence resting ever so over his thighs. He’s touching Harry, which is a good sign that Harry hasn’t cocked it all up by going super cock sucking demon, threatening to knock Niall out for a straight week with how far he’d almost gone there. 

His hand slides down Harry’s back, resting at the dip. His voice is low, steady, on the edge of a warning when he says, “You touch yourself while I was away?” 

It’s strangely tense for what Harry’s used to, so his “No,” is measured because he doesn’t know what the right answer is. 

“Why not?” Niall chides, his voice light. “I gotta do all the work here?” 

Harry snorts into the pillow, pressing his smile and his relief into the crinkly sterile case.

“You’re getting lazy in your old age.” He pinches at Harry’s side.

“ _ Oi. _ ” Harry twitches away from him, tries to at least, but then Niall’s a heavy weight on him. His leg jerks to smack right into Niall, he’s not sure where, but he hopes it’s not his balls, or they’ll never get going again. 

Niall’s slick fingers pet at his hole suddenly, and Harry jumps. Niall makes a pleased noise, always fucking likes to throw Harry off his rhythm. 

Harry scowls and moans and whines, but secretly loves it this way. He loves when it feels more like Niall’s dream than Harry’s or something shared. He loves the surprise and being given whatever Niall’s willing to give him. 

Niall’s willing to give him two fingers at once, catching both of their breaths at the shock of it. 

Harry had fingered himself before he ever let Niall do it, to prepare him for the experience. “It’s like gently caressing an ice cube,” Harry had said, somewhat dreamily, grasping for an explanation that felt remotely apt, “solid, but like, slick, gets your fingers numb, but in like a good way.”

“Exactly how many ice cubes have you gently caressed?” Niall had asked, smacking Harry directly in the face with a pillow when he’d answered haughtily, “Enough.”

Niall bends over to burn his lips against Harry’s skin, to bite deep enough into the meat of Harry’s shoulder that he’s arching back and pressing Niall’s fingers even deeper into him, closer to whatever icicle in him calls itself his prostate. Harry doesn’t need a lot of prep, slutty by default, he is, down to the molecular level, but Niall promised him slow.

It’s three fingers and what must be several hours later when Harry’s biting on the pillow to keep from making noises he can’t take back, when his dick has rubbed enough precome into the pillow under him that it should likely be disintegrated in some sort of decontamination process for biohazardous materials, never to see the light of day again. 

“Ready,” Harry says, finally giving up. His teeth clench down into the pillow again, but he knows Niall can still hear his quiet  _ please, please, please.  _

“All right, petal.” 

Harry widens his legs even further, but Niall shifts his weight off of him, presses his lube-slick hand against Harry’s hip and tugs until Harry gets the hint. He’s meant to turn over.

He takes more than a few breaths of courage before he manages, not quite prepared to see Niall knelt above him, flushed, hard, sweaty, looking like he’s the one about to devour Harry and not the other way around. 

They let a kiss accompany the grinding of their dicks together as Niall settles back over Harry’s body, a teasing preview of what’s to come. Harry works a hand between them to slick Niall up, not even sure where the bottle of lube is - if Niall had even gotten it - because it doesn’t have to work like that in a dream. 

The furious nod of Harry’s head and the insistent press of Harry’s hand has Niall lining himself up. The sound that escapes Harry’s lips is feral, so rough it makes his throat go raw. In his dreams, everyone feels like the biggest Harry’s ever taken because he’s tight for everyone who fucks him, a bloody demonic courtesy. 

Niall presses in, nearly all the way up to his bollocks, but then he goes still. They’re so close, noses nearly bumping against each other as Niall shivers. 

Niall’s voice goes thick with the effort of saying, “S’fucking cold.”

“I know.” Harry moves his hand from Niall’s arse to his neck, petting at it soothingly. “You gotta move, okay? Better when you move, promise.”

“Yeah.” Niall’s hips tip forward hesitantly, trusting or maybe just remembering. 

Harry wishes he could be normal about it, not that he’d ever asked Niall the few times they’d done this outside a dream which one was better. But if Harry were normal about it, they wouldn’t be here. Harry wouldn’t have landed himself wherever in the world Niall Horan was to fuck him in his sleep all because he’d made a girl cry three months ago and he’d made Tom laugh at him last night.

_ Don’t let me think _ , he tells Niall through a snog that has Harry biting at Niall’s bottom lip and raising his leg to dig his foot into Niall’s back. Niall takes instruction well, fucking Harry with a vengeance until the only thing left in Harry’s mind is  _ it’s good fucking good _ .

His skin hums with their connection, he can feel the vibrating even in his teeth where they gnash on instinct to bite into something and literally feed. Harry’s hand reaches down to where Niall pushes into him with confidence, fingers trailing around the slick, catching on occasion Niall’s balls, hot and tight and ready to spill into him.

There’s nothing more beautiful that Harry can conjure than this right here, the battle between Niall’s heat and Harry’s chill, the vulnerability that comes with opening up to each other, the trust Niall shows by dipping into the ice in Harry’s body, the sweet desperate sounds they can’t help but make. It almost convinces Harry he couldn’t be a monster, making something this beautiful. 

Harry collects up the little clues all over again that Niall’s close one at a time before he whispers, “You close?” 

He’s loathe to interrupt now, but there’s a process. Niall respects a process.

“Niall?” he prompts.

Niall nods finally, his eyes cracking open to show there’s no blue left in them, just an unnatural black. He’s nearly gone, nearly ready for Harry. 

“M’gonna ride you for a bit, yeah?”

Niall goes stubborn, his brow furrowing. “I can do it,” he slurs. 

“I want to,” Harry says, kissing at Niall’s chin, and that’s enough for Niall. It’s always been  _ want _ that gets him, not  _ need _ . 

They’re repositioned in a blink, and Harry’s never certain if it’s superhuman movement, or just the simple twist of a dream that gives him what he wants as soon as he thinks of it. Niall’s stretched out beneath him, head cushioned on a pillow, knees crooked as his hips shift. 

He’s pouting, but dealing with it well enough, probably remembers he’s little more than dead weight once Harry’s done with him. Harry feeds on Niall where Niall will be less prone to concussion - on his back, well cushioned by pillows. The process.

“Fffffuck,” Niall says, his fingers digging helplessly into Harry’s hips as Harry begins to ride him in earnest. They’re done with slow.

Harry grins, so fucking pleased with himself. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, H.”

He slaps his hand weakly at Harry’s where it’s braced on one side of Niall’s head until Harry twists and collects him up, lacing his fingers through Niall’s. 

Niall watches him seriously, his dark eyes wandering over every inch of his face. Harry can’t stand the darkness that comes over his own face when he feeds, the way it shifts with thirst and pending satisfaction, something altogether too unnatural to put to words. He’s seen it once, fucking in front of the mirror in an en suite because he thought it’d be sexy. He’s never done that again.

Niall always watches, though, like he’s proving a point. 

Harry goes sheet white and cold, frost licking up his skin until his lips are blue and his eyes are blacker than Niall’s. Then Harry starts knocking at the door Niall’s got up between them; he’ll beg Niall to open it until his knuckles start bleeding. 

But he doesn’t have to beg, he’s known from the start. 

Niall cracks the door open, and it’s euphoric. Harry comes across Niall’s stomach untouched just from the pure rush of energy Niall feeds him. He feels weightless, but grounded at the same time, gravity pulling him down firm and tight onto Niall’s dick until he begins to spill inside Harry. 

Niall pulses inside him, a heat crawling through Harry’s veins and burning him up from the inside. Like maybe if Niall tries hard enough he could melt the glaciers within Harry, thaw him until he’s human again. Niall won’t be able to, but there’s something about the quixotic effort that rounds Harry’s hard edges.

It’s the closest thing to a religious experience Harry’s ever had.

The door eases itself back closed once Harry’s full of Niall in every way Harry could conceive. Niall’s grip on Harry’s hand slackens and he exhales, his breath fogging the air between them. His eyes slide shut. 

Harry’s off his lap before he can blink, crouching at Niall’s side to make quick work of the come painting his stomach. Harry doesn’t care much for his own taste when he’s like this, but the fact that it’s on Niall means he needs it. 

It’s dead quiet, not even ambient sounds from the street because Harry doesn’t know how to construct them and he doesn’t want to. He only wants to soak up the sounds of Niall’s shivering breaths as he recovers. 

He carefully detangles their hands and settles his head on Niall’s chest, can feel the lightest icy breeze against his exposed neck as Niall breathes.

He tells himself this is part of it, that the intimacy soaks into his skin and rejuvenates him, that he can pull residual pieces of energy through the soft trail of his fingers across Niall’s torso. Niall is cool, like marble because Harry has stolen all of Niall’s warmth and locked it inside himself. 

Harry could fall asleep right here, if he weren’t already asleep.

Niall moves after some time, his hand coming to rest low on Harry’s hip. Harry presses a kiss on the gooseflesh-ridden skin of Niall’s chest, right where his lips already meet Niall’s proud patch of hair, soft enough that he can deny it if he needs to.

A few aborted attempts at speaking come, just a few struggling hums, before Niall says, “Do me a favor.”

Harry opens his eyes to look up at him, but finds his own ceiling instead. He’s tucked into the bed he’d fallen asleep in, under both the sheet and the duvet, dressed in a shirt and jogging bottoms. His phone chimes with his alarm on the table to his left, which he leans over to slap off. 

When he exhales, a chill doesn’t follow, but he can still feel it in the flex of his muscles, the ease with which he can breathe deeply now. He’s awake. He’s sated. 

He sits up properly and thinks he should ring Niall, catch the end of that sentence if Niall can remember it. Or maybe just send along an email. Something to the point that doesn’t necessitate a response like -  _ Nothing quenches my insatiable demonic thirst quite like your cock. Thanks for the seeing to. H.  _

He knows he’ll do neither of the sort and swings out of bed to pad into the en suite. 

He wees, looking down and thinking, almost glumly,  _ Niall hardly touched my dick _ , before carrying on with the rest of his morning routine. Teeth, face, ears, eyebrows - back for hair after he dresses - always in that order.

His regular check goes a little longer than he anticipates, though, as his mind keeps wandering. He runs his thumb up and down the phantom bruise Niall would have left on his neck. He doesn’t know if he’s happy or just bloody relieved to be done with it all.

He can walk back into rehearsal in a few hours know that if they do decide Tom’s the one pulling him onto the boat after all, he doesn’t have to excuse himself to deal with how that makes him want to run from the city screaming. 

But this can’t happen again. It was good, it was familiar, it was what Harry fucking needed, but he can’t go back there. He’s meant to have a plan - he snuffs out nostalgia before it has a spare second to burn. What Was is dangerous. He only deals in What Is. Niall isn’t What Is anymore.

When he’s just put on a fresh pair of pants, his phone starts ringing on the stand, Niall’s name flashing up at him. He feels the familiar pull to let it go to voicemail out of habit, out of fear. But he reckons he owes Niall as much, saving his life. 

“Hey.”

“Hey.” Niall’s voice sounds gruff, sluggish, pulled from sleep to anyone who doesn’t know better. He’s recovering from Harry, a refractory period of another kind.

Harry listens to him breathe carefully in and out and in and out, like they’ve practiced until Niall seems to have the hang of it on his own. Then Harry beats him to the punch.

“I won’t do that again.”

“I know you won’t.” Niall pauses, breathing and breathing, careful with his words in a way Harry understands, appreciates. “You scared me.”

Harry’s head ducks as that settles into his chest, uninvited and unwanted. He didn’t open that door for Niall. “I won’t - ”

“I know.” Niall’s voice still straddles angry and concerned, tipping more towards concerned if Harry’s being generous with himself. And he does like to be generous with himself. 

It’s ages before Niall speaks again, but Harry owes him that too, waits for whatever judgment is coming for him. 

“Listen, whoever’s doing your head in, just talk to them. Y’know? Open your mouth, let them words come out.”

_ It’s me _ , Harry thinks,  _ I’m doing my own head in these days.  _

“I’ve gotta go,” Harry says instead. “I’ve got call in half an hour.”

“All right.”

“Thank you.”

Niall hesitates before saying, “Yeah.” 

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Sure.” There’s a pause like maybe he means to say something else. But instead he says, “Bye, H,” and hangs up first.

Harry throws the phone onto the bed first, then throws himself onto it. He could have handled that better, but he hasn’t got a fucking clue how.

Guilt comes to Harry’s surface too easily to sit on him heavy and relentless, making him feel like he has to jump through all manner of hoops no one else has to just to prove he has a chance at being something other than what he is. That he can be kind, that he can give without taking, that he’s nothing to be afraid of. 

It’s easy to hear people tell him he’s good, he’s fucking amazing, and to believe them. Because that’s what he wants to be. Because it drowns out the voices in his head, the ones that sound like his own and read out to him his deepest fears, the ones that sound like Louis and call him frigid when he really wants it to hurt, the ones that sound like Niall and are always trying to disarm the bomb that leads to Harry’s self-destruction, even when Harry’s the one starting the countdown himself.

He doesn’t know how to make sense of it, and maybe he never did. Maybe he’d told himself he did because he’d just let Niall smooth it over the way Niall used to smooth everything over, whether it should have been or not. 

He’d promised Niall he was going to take care of it. And he is. 

\----

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very very much for reading. xx


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